The Freedom of Information Act and the Office of Professional Responsibility

Working for over three decades for Chief Counsel’s office, one of my goals was to avoid disclosure issues both on a personal and professional level. On a personal level, I wanted to know enough to keep out of trouble and on a professional level I wanted to avoid getting labeled as someone who knew disclosure law because that could lead to more assignments regarding disclosure issues which I did not want. At Chief Counsel’s office, FOIA was lumped in with IRC 6103 and the Privacy Act. Practicing at a clinic, I only want to know enough about the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to avoid having contact with it. Just as I did not want to know more about section 6103 than I needed in order to avoid trouble while working at Chief Counsel’s office, I do not want to learn more about OPR. I want to know the ethical rules but not what happens when you break them, because I hope that is knowledge I will never need.

Today’s case takes me into the confluence of two things I try to avoid and yet the case has important lessons worth discussion. In Waterman v. IRS, 121 AFTR2d 2018-__(D.D.C. 1-24-2018), the issue before the court is a request for records from OPR regarding an investigation of an attorney. The attorney, Brad Waterman, practices in D.C. and has for several decades. He graduated from my law school the year before me and we have met on several occasions. He has an excellent practice and the last time we met he was splitting his time between D.C. and Florida, depending on the season. The fact that he is seeking records from OPR concerning an investigation does not mean he engaged in inappropriate behavior. I know nothing about the investigation other than it was quickly closed which, it turns out, is his problem in this case. His case caused OPR to change its procedures despite, or maybe because of, his FOIA difficulties to make it easier for someone in his situation to obtain records from OPR.

read more...

In representing a client in a matter involving a tax exempt bond, Mr. Waterman caused the revenue agent in the IRS Tax Exempt Bond office to feel that Mr. Waterman engaged in misconduct. The revenue agent, through his manager, made a referral to OPR. After investigation, OPR determined that “the allegation against Waterman did not warrant further inquiries or action.” I recently attended the ABA Tax Section meeting, at which I attended the Standards of Practice committee meeting in an effort to keep up on ethical issues. At that meeting, the director of OPR, Steve Whitlock, spoke and he talked about this case. I began writing this post on the plane to San Diego to attend the meeting. So, when the director started talking about this case, I woke up from my normal meeting stupor and started listening carefully. I hope I heard and understood him correctly.

Apparently, OPR decided not to pursue this case without sending out a letter to Mr. Waterman asking him for information. OPR regularly determines that many of the referrals it receives do not warrant further investigation and do not require making the referred individual submit material. When it makes this decision at the internal investigation stage, the case is closed with a letter to the individual informing the individual of the closure of the case without need for input from the individual. This was the normal procedure at the time OPR closed Mr. Waterman’s case. It was also, and still is I believe, the normal procedure for the OPR letter informing the individual of its conclusion to also inform the individual that OPR would retain the file on the matter for 25 years and that it reserved the right to reference the file in any future OPR investigations. Ouch. I suspect that receiving such a letter with the language about retention drove Mr. Waterman to want to know as much about the referral and investigation as possible in the event that it might have future ramifications.

The problem Mr. Waterman faced in trying to obtain information about the referral is that because OPR closed its investigation at the time of the sending of the letter, he could not use the section 6103 procedures, see here and here, that OPR suggests individuals use to obtain information about the referral. Had his case not been closed with an early letter, he would have instead received a far more ominous letter informing him of the investigation and asking him to respond to the allegations. In that situation, OPR would not have a closed investigation but a very open one. During an open investigation, OPR suggests that individuals use the section 6103 process to obtain information about the investigation. Because his investigation was closed by the time Mr. Waterman knew he wanted information, he could not use the section 6103 procedure and instead had to revert to FOIA in order to try to obtain the information.

The OPR director stated at the ABA meeting that because of this case, OPR was changing its procedures. Now, instead of issuing the one letter and closing the case immediately, it is going to issue a preliminary letter giving the target individual 60 days to make a statement to OPR and to obtain information about the investigation through section 6103. See the following paragraph for a link to this letter. Now, a recipient of this “good” OPR letter, if there is such a thing, can use the section 6103 procedures for obtaining information before OPR closes its case 60 days later. If someone receiving this good letter fails to ask for information about the investigation under section 6103 during that 60 day period, then they will face the same FOIA obstacles which Mr. Waterman encountered and which I will discuss below. I hope that neither I nor any reader will need the benefit of this knowledge, but just in case I provide it for any who have the misfortune of a referral.

Attached to the outline created by the director of OPR for his presentation at the ABA meeting were samples of the three letters sent by OPR. The first letter is called the pre-allegation letter. This is the letter alerting the recipient of an OPR investigation that is not being dropped after the initial internal review by OPR. The second letter is called the “soft conduct letter – initial” This is the letter giving the recipient the chance to request information from OPR using IRC 6103 and avoiding the problems faced by Mr. Waterman. This letter would be sent to someone that OPR determines not to investigate further after reviewing the incoming allegations. The third letter is called the “soft conduct letter” which should be sent about 60 days after the initial soft conduct letter and which would inform the recipient that OPR was closing its investigation.

The FOIA case does not discuss the merits of the investigation. From the opinion, it is clear that Mr. Waterman made informal requests for information about the investigation and did not receive everything that he wanted. So, he made a formal FOIA request. In responding to the FOIA request, the IRS withheld certain information asserting primarily FOIA exemption 5, which “allows agencies to withhold information that would not be available by law to a party … in litigation with the agency.”

In the FOIA case, Mr. Waterman agreed that the IRS search for the requested records was adequate. I want to take a brief detour here to mention another recent FOIA case, Ayyad v. IRS, No. 8-16-cv-03032 (D. Md. 2-2-2018). In the Ayyad case, the requester did not agree that the search for the records was adequate and for good reason. An examination of the taxpayer was pending for about a decade when they filed the FOIA request seeking records, which included the administrative file developed by the revenue agent including all written correspondence relating to the examination. With relatively amazing speed for a FOIA case, the IRS identified 2,885 pages of responsive records but did not produce a Vaughn index detailing the redacted and withheld records. After the taxpayers filed their FOIA suit, the IRS informed the Court it found an additional 872 pages. Later, after the taxpayer stated records were still missing, the IRS found another 6,568 pages. Needless to say, the IRS did not cover itself in glory in this case and did not prevail. Its inadequate searches and its failures to submit proper Vaughan indices resulted in an unfavorable FOIA decision. So, it is not unimportant that Mr. Waterman agreed with the IRS search. His case was much less involved and he undoubtedly knew what records were out there, but the Ayyad case provides a note of caution in relying on the first submission of records from the IRS.

In Mr. Waterman’s case, the court found that the Vaughn index properly described the withheld documents and the basis for the exemption (also a major issue in the Ayyad case). The documents at issue were pre-deliberative and involved material created by the revenue agent who made the referral, his manager, preliminary findings of the OPR investigator, and an email between OPR and counsel. The court finds all of the documents meet the test under FOIA exemption 5. If I understood Mr. Whitlock correctly, Mr. Waterman would have received the referring documents under a section 6103 request made during an open OPR investigation. I do not believe he would receive the other two documents under section 6103.

I am very sympathetic with Mr. Waterman’s right to know the basis for the investigation. Because OPR is retaining the records for 25 years, he has genuine concerns. I applaud OPR for changing its procedures to allow other similarly situated individuals to obtain records under the more friendly section 6103 procedures. I hope the information in this post is information you and I will never need to know.

Related

Comment Policy: While we all have years of experience as practitioners and attorneys, and while Keith and Les have taught for many years, we think our work is better when we generate input from others. That is one of the reasons we solicit guest posts (and also because of the time it takes to write what we think are high quality posts). Involvement from others makes our site better. That is why we have kept our site open to comments.

If you want to make a public comment, you must identify yourself (using your first and last name) and register by including your email. If you do not, we will remove your comment. In a comment, if you disagree with or intend to criticize someone (such as the poster, another commenter, a party or counsel in a case), you must do so in a respectful manner. We reserve the right to delete comments. If your comment is obnoxious, mean-spirited or violates our sense of decency we will remove the comment. While you have the right to say what you want, you do not have the right to say what you want on our blog.

Leslie Book

Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg is a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he started a tax clinic in 2015. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, he began his academic career at Villanova Law School in 2007 after working for over 30 years with the Office of Chief Counsel, IRS. Read More…

Follow Us!

Post Topics

Helpful Links

IRS Practice and Procedure (The Thomson Reuters preeminent treatise on tax procedure, originally authored by Michael Saltzman, with Les now the lead successor author and Keith and Stephen contributing chapter authors and all three updating the treatise).

Related

This website is intended for general information purposes only and should not be considered legal advice on any particular situation. Visitors should obtain legal advice from their own attorney to suit their particular situation. The creation of an attorney-client relationship is not intended nor created by any communication through this website.